


midnight stories

by sunflow3rs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Coffee Shops, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou Friendship, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflow3rs/pseuds/sunflow3rs
Summary: Matsukawa meets Kenma and decides to throw out some old flirting phrases pulled from his inner player. Maybe they would have worked a little better if they hadn't met in the middle of a funeral.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Matsukawa Issei
Kudos: 3





	midnight stories

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [midnight stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235102) by [sunflow3rs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflow3rs/pseuds/sunflow3rs). 



> So here I'm translating my own fic because I'm so bored and I can't write anything else. It's okay I guess xD. Well, I'm sorry if they are any mistakes, I'm trying, alright? forgive me :'(
> 
> hope you enjoy it, thanks you. <3

Kenma's great-uncle had died of a heart attack less than forty-eight hours ago. He was an older man whom he hadn't seen since his childhood and whose face he didn’t remember, but still his mother had forced him to attend his funeral to pay his respects. He wasn't sure why he should. He was twenty-six years old, had a paid house without mortgaging, and a job that gave him enough money for his taxes to suffer from a plus, but even so the woman who gave him life had managed to drag him to the doors of that mortuary to observe the corpse of an old man whom he didn't know.

He didn't like mortuaries. He supposed no one should like funeral homes. Death was breathed in all its corners and the yellow light, used to create a much more pleasant environment, didn’t help in anything that wasn’t to cause even more headache. In addition, those places were no longer the traditional places that he had seen a thousand and one times in japanese films. They had been modernized, like everything in the city, and now it was gigantic windows that ran the walls from top to bottom. Six meters of rigorous transparent glass. Anyone who got close enough to the entrance of the building would be able to see their family cry and sob as they hug each other.

Tora could call it old-fashioned as many times as he wanted that he wouldn't mind in the least. That kind of modern thing didn't appeal to him a bit.

He was standing in front of the glass when Matsukawa dropped her gaze on him. He was wearing a black suit that was too formal for a simple funeral, but he didn't know how to dress for such events and he believed that a simple tracksuit would make his mother angry. His eyes were lost in the small square that had as its entrance the funeral home, the road in the background and the cars passing at the corresponding speed. He was sure that the sound of the night in the center of the capital was much louder than the quiet classical music bouncing off the walls of the room, so he assumed that the eight inches of concrete between window and window would do the trick, in fact, for something.

Matsukawa watched him from a distance, noticing at first how separate he was from the rest of the family, who had settled down on the chairs and benches closest to the black coffin that featured in the evening. Although that was not what caught his attention. Kenma's gaze was fixed on his reflection and it was more empty than the usual sadness that Matsukawa used to perceive in those who came to the site. Funerals weren't, shall we say, an idyllic fun zone. But it was different, it was something new.

It was like when looking at something one feels that it shouldn’t be that way. That there was something that he wasn’t able to notice, something deeper that wouldn't be seen with open eyes, almost demanding in complete silence to be fixed as a resigned call for help. It was like when he watched Hanamaki, sitting fiercely on the couch in his apartment with three packages of Doritos between his feet and watching the same Netflix soap opera for the fourth time, assuring him that in none of the job interviews he had gone to they had accepted him. Something inside him knew his bum friend hadn't gotten off the couch all day.

Well, maybe not like that, but Matsukawa was struck by it. Before he knew it, he decided to abandon his boring task of supervising the wake, which wasn’t much fun given that there was a tiny chance that middle-aged people would start a riot in the middle of the funeral home, or that the grandpa died rise from the coffin, and approach the man with the frank illusion of throwing a couple of lines of that old-fashioned flirtation that so dominated. Hanamaki had told him that he should change his repertoire if he wanted to get something stable, but Matsukawa wouldn't take advice from someone who used Doritos as just another type of cereal to mix with milk.

"Hi," he greeted, stepping to the side and staring through the glass for a few seconds before turning his neck toward the stranger. Kenma raised his gaze, looking up at the cheap suit he was wearing, almost judging him by the gesture, and frowned wondering who the hell he was. If it was a relative, he had no idea which part it came from, but he also wasn't sure who the man who had died was. He had the helpless longing that like him he wasn’t a person who liked to talk. He didn't have the strength for it. "I'm from the funeral company."

Kenma looked at his face. His eyelids were droopy and his eyebrows were thick, giving off a feeling of constantly being tired that reminded him with some ease of himself, so he guessed that he actually worked at the funeral home. It hit the mark, at least. He kept waiting for Matsukawa to continue talking so that he would be able to send him to someone else who had an idea who would pay for all that.

“Do you come often here?” The man's question managed to confuse him completely. He had thrown the ball and made it full, because it had baffled him enough to question himself if he was really in the funeral home, or if, on the contrary, he had let his subconscious guide him to a totally different place. He blinked, glancing around, at his mother hugging a couple of aunts and cousins in the corner, and then his eyes fell on the coffin where the lifeless body of that man rested. After his long pause, he returned his gaze to Matsukawa.

“Sure. Every weekend.”

Matsukawa licked his lips and nodded, struggling with himself not to snort in amusement, because sometimes he remembered that he had to have a modicum of principles. He hummed as a way to show his approval of his unknown companion's reply as if he had passed some kind of imaginary test. He hadn't told him to fuck off, nor had he started crying and screaming at how inconsiderate it was to joke around in such a situation, which was a very good sign. He had responded with a good deal of irony without changing his blank, blank face a single bit.

"Weird, I've never seen you," he continued, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, looking back at the window. In front of the funeral home there was a cafeteria that used to close at midnight, for which it was not too long, and he told himself that at any moment he would go out for a good coffee. Perhaps when he finished his productive conversation with the opponent.

Kenma turned his head to look at the cafeteria, or what he assumed Matsukawa was looking at. He didn't feel like continuing that conversation, nor did he feel like standing there with his eyes fixed on nothing. He wanted to go home and play one of his favorite video games, perhaps edit one of the videos he had planned to upload to his channel, or check the emails that his company urgently demanded that he respond. But he couldn't do it. He didn't drive and his mother was the one who had to take him home. To be honest, it wasn't like the woman had the thought of letting him go so soon either. He took another look at her. She had started to cry.

"I'm usually in there," Kenma told him, pointing with his chin at the half-open black urn, assuming that continuing the conversation with this stranger was the most interesting thing to do at the moment. Matsukawa didn't hide the small amused smile that came over his lips upon hearing the comment. He turned his body to rest his shoulder on the glass, not caring in the least to leave the mark on it, and looked at the boy with some curiosity.

"Wait," he narrowed his eyes. Already he had them half closed in his day to day so the gesture implied that his pupils became almost non-existent. Kenma wondered if, in fact, the man was capable of seeing him that way. "You're a _kozuken_ or something like that, right?" You were on the cover of a magazine last week.

Kenma scolded his nose and would almost have preferred to chat with any of his sniggering, tearful family members, than a fan, at least for the moment. He was more than used to people recognizing him everywhere he went, it was something he couldn't ignore and that went hand in hand with the digits in his bank account that paid for his bills. He had learned to accept it. But that situation ... He didn't want to have to endure it in the happy funeral home. However, Matsukawa smiled at him again, aware of the reaction he had caused. It was like a cat that had just been named the word bath. The hair on his back had stood on end and he had leaped away, landing on all fours a few feet behind. Metaphorically.

"Easy boy, I'm not going to ask for an autograph," Matsukawa said quickly, raising his hands in peace to what he could still in his pocket, without wanting to start a war. It wasn't like he was a fan of what Kenma did. In fact, he only knew him from the monthly subscription to his live channel that Hanamaki renewed every first of the month without fail with his credit card, in addition to the magazine that, again, had been bought with his money. He was beginning to think that his best friend was taking advantage of a bit of his innate kindness.

Kenma was silent and Matsukawa wondered if now that he had guessed who it was he would become more aware of what things were coming out of his mouth. He pointed at the coffin, then, with his elbow and a quick click of his tongue to let him know what he was talking about.

"I suppose you weren't close," he commented with little interest. Kenma shook his head affirming his assumption and began to search his head for some excuse to get away from that conversation. He didn't understand why the hell the undertaker kept talking to him. Did he have a depressed face and just trying to get to know his future client a little more? It was stupid. “It usually shows, you know, people cry and are sad. Sometimes they have the same expression as you, as empty, without believing that they have lost someone relative. But yours is different.”

Kenma's head turned to Matsukawa waiting for him to continue his monologue. He had a feeling the man was about to spout some bullshit that would serve as a pretext for dropping the talk, so he allowed him to finish.

"You don't seem to care at all."

Kenma wrapped his gaze with a frown. That was quite a daring presumption to blurt out to someone he had just met. The man was strange, rude and disrespectful enough to work in a funeral company. He was beginning to believe that, in fact, he didn't. His appearance was all he had as a guess, and it wasn't as if it were a self-sustaining proof. Perhaps he was a sociopath who visited funeral homes when he wasn’t busy murdering people to fuel the sadism within him. Maybe corpses were going for him. Kenma had seen enough episodes of Criminal Minds not to see the idea so exorbitant.

“I have offended you? Sorry, it was not my intention.” Matsukawa was apologizing, but his face didn’t show the slightest bit of sincerity. The words bounced off Kenma's head like a bad joke and he didn't know how to take it. However, the stranger was ready to introduce himself, reaching his hand forward in anticipation of a squeeze. “Issei Matsukawa.”

"Kenma Kozume," he accepted the greeting after a few seconds in which his eyes traveled from the long fingers of the now Matsukawa to his face with the vague thought that he would remove his arm as quickly as he brought his own. But he didn’t. Their hands touched in a customary gentle grip that was nothing more than a mere formality. Then he corrected him. "It's Kodzuken."

Kenma's mother caught the attention of the two men, then, giving a reason for their separation. Kenma shook his head apologetically and left his place in front of the window to approach his mother, who was waiting for him with open arms and puffy eyes. Matsukawa stared at his back, his tiny body walking reluctantly and his hair pulled back into a poorly done ponytail. His family members gathered around him and in the blink of an eye he had been devoured by the limbs of middle-aged men and women.

Matsukawa made one last lap around the funeral home to check that everything was still in order. The guests were crying and the corpse was still one. He told himself that it was the perfect time to go out and get some fresh air, smoke the cigarette that his subconscious had been asking for a while, and perhaps cross the street and buy that hot coffee. He grabbed his raincoat, hidden in one of the rooms in which a no-passing sign stood tall, and walked to the exit of the building assuring his co-worker that he would be back in half an hour.

The cold air greeted him in a not so pleasant welcome. Matsukawa hated the low temperatures and the threats of snow that the winter season brought with it. He was more suited to the summer, the heat, the beach, and fucking shirtless men practicing beach volleyball. December and January were months for happy couples who had nothing better to do than snuggle together and watch a documentary on the humpback whale migration.

There was a small plaza at the entrance that belonged to the funerary building. It had a couple of trees planted and a gardener would show up in the mornings so the flowers were as intact and perfect as if every day was spring. A stone wall delimited the slope for disabled access to one side of the stairs, high enough so that Matsukawa could lean his hips on it, in front of a small sign that prohibited smoking next to one of the enclosure cameras.

Matsukawa ignored it like he always had. He knew the security guard and was most likely napping, although if he hadn't, he wouldn't say anything to him for breaking one of the rules. He told himself that since he had been working in that funeral home for almost three years, he had been the one who had created the rules. Hanamaki would complain saying something about the city council being the one who put up those kinds of signs, but Matsukawa, again, didn’t take advice from someone like him.

He lit his cigar, staring at the road, the crosswalk, and the green light. Compared to the inside of the building, now you could hear all the bustle of metropolitan life in its greatest splendor, people talking and walking, going from here to there, ignoring the whining, the depressing words or the death that was shared inside the funeral home. It was quite a refreshing contrast, in his opinion.

"Will you lend me fire?"

Kenma's voice managed to surprise him. He had been so focused on the road that he had barely noticed the short steps of the man, who had managed to position himself in front of him with an unlit cigar between his lips and a raised hand, closing the distance between their bodies. Matsukawa tilted his head and his fingers, in his jacket pocket, began to play with the requested lighter.

"Where is the please?" He lamented. He removed the cigar after a long drag to utter a very false and rather hoarse groan. It wasn't like manners mattered in the slightest, really, but he would never be able to waste such a joke. He wasn't that rogue. However, Kenma didn’t change his expectant expression, almost anticipating what he was going to say. "Fame has gone to your head, hasn't it? This is what happens with famous people.”

Kenma frowned again. He withdrew his still dull cigar from his mouth, placing it between his fingers, and resignedly gave in to the teasing.

“Please. “

Matsukawa smiled at him in thanks. He took out the lighter and waited for Kenma to put the cigar back in his mouth to light it. The boy approached, then, with his frozen hands forming a focus around the fire so that the wind would not prevent him from finishing his mission, trying not to touch the opponent's fist again.

"Thanks " Kenma added to avoid a second joke. Matsukawa nodded and put his lighter away, his eyes never leaving the way the boy took his first drag. 

The breeze caused his long hair to tangle, warning him that he would have to redo the ponytail if he wanted to look decent in front of anyone, and Matsukawa found himself thinking that he was undoubtedly much more handsome than he had ever seen, casually, in his videos. The boy tricked. His voice was softer and a bit louder than Matsukawa had actually imagined.

“What?” Kenma snapped at the intense look that was beginning to make him somewhat hysterical. Matsukawa didn't mind seeing himself caught analyzing his face, so he shrugged and continued with his cigar. Kenma snorted. "Have you ever been told that you look like a serial killer? You're a little weird.

Matsukawa raised her eyebrows in surprise and put a hand to his chest completely ignoring the offense. With the other he took his cigar out of his mouth and blew out the smoke as fast as he could to be able to respond to the comment as God intended.

"Sorry, you've said so many words to me that I've gotten nervous" he exaggerated, stepping into his own shy boy role that he had just imagined, making Kenma unable to keep his brow furrowed, throwing one of those glances at him that showed how much vital energy his comment robbed him of. He crossed his arms.

"You remind me of someone," Kenma admitted, perhaps talking too much, opening the door to a conversation he wasn't sure he wanted to star in. However, Matsukawa was watching him curiously, and raised his eyebrows mischievously not wanting to miss his chance.

"An ex-boyfriend?" Tried. Kenma let out a dejected snort and leaned against the wall less than a meter to his side. His eyes locked on the security camera, taking another drag and ignoring the sign forbidding him to smoke.

“No. Not at all.“ Matsukawa was genuinely surprised for the first time that night. The truth was that he wasn’t expected to Kenma being gay, but had thrown the question as one of the thousand nonsense that he said every day. He scored it as a personal triumph, his ears attentive to whatever Kenma had to say, finding it much more interesting as the seconds ticked by.

"Oh, unrequited love?" Kenma guessed rather quickly that Matsukawa had no hair on his tongue, that he spoke without any filter, and that the words came out of his mouth without a single second of thought. It was amazing how someone so cheeky could exist. It was a bit annoying. He wasn't used to people he knew talking to him that way. He was famous! Most of the people flattered him. However, it was impossible for him to ignore the ball of nerves that settled in his stomach at Matsukawa's first stupid comment, the one that made him remember his best friend so much. The boy hummed at the silence assuming he was correct. “Who was going to tell me that the GQ cover man would have one of those ...

"Do you have any idea when to be silent?" Kenma asked, more to the air than anything else, somewhat irritated. Asking him for a fire, staying by his side, and engaging in conversation had probably been the worst idea he could have had. He shouldn't, but now he had no way of going back in time and making the last five or six minutes of his life disappear. He crossed out the event as his daily act of charity.

Matsukawa shrugged and stubbed out his cigar against the stone in the space between the two of them.

"I'm usually a quiet man," he confessed, still playing with the ash and crushed tobacco. "But from what I see you too, and, well, you can't flirt with someone with your mouth closed."

Kenma began to cough when the phrase made sense in his head, surprised at the other people's statement, not believing that he hadn’t realized his intentions.

“Flirt?”

Matsukawa nodded. Kenma snorted once his breathing settled down.

"You're pretty bad at it," he admitted. The shoulder let out one of its now common offended groans, which the more time passed the higher it became.

“You say it as if you were better, sir Unrequited Love.

Silence prevailed for perhaps an exact minute. Kenma had fallen silent at the comment, having found one of his weakest points without much effort, not knowing how to respond to it. It had been his fault for opening his big mouth. This was what happened to him for showing a bit of sociability outside his comfort zone! He shouldn't have told Matsukawa, who didn't make himself known for being the most polite or considerate boy, anything that had to do with his life. He shouldn't even have asked for a fire.

Matsukawa let out a sigh without being able to endure another second of the awkward atmosphere that had been created.

"Look, everyone has someone like that," he tried in a vague attempt at comfort. It wasn't like he was good at that kind of thing, encouraging him or even solving the problems he caused himself. "I spent my entire adolescence drooling over a volleyball buddy who never laid eyes on me, you know, but I got through it."

Kenma focused on his cigar, on the ash that threatened to fall on his expensive suit, on the smoke that stung the bottom of his throat. His fingers moved to the tobacco before the ash fell, exhaling through his nose and fighting not to have to look at Matsukawa.

"It's not the same," he said. Matsukawa stared at him with some attention. "They didn't reject me."

The undertaker frowned, feeling that something was escaping him, because he didn't understand what was happening. It wasn't for being smart, but most of the time he was able to read his surroundings as if it were an open book in front of him written in impeccable handwriting. Yet sitting there with Kenma beside him, it was hard for him to even perceive which path he was taking. The book was open and his eyes were the only ones who could read it, but the message was encrypted and his inner hacker, who sometimes called it Mini Me, seemed like it would take a while to decipher it.

"Smells like teenage love problems to me," Matsukawa guessed in another attempt at a silly joke. He licked his lips, cut due to the cold they were passing out there and the one they had decided to ignore for the value of their conversation, and the original reason for which he had left the mortuary returned to his head. "I think I can only survive it with a coffee."

Kenma raised an eyebrow at him, his gaze following the lift of his chin that pointed to the cafeteria across the street.

"Can you invite me to one, sir I am rich?"

It might seem that, in fact, there was a reasonable justification for accepting the proposal that the freak Issei Matsukawa was offering him. Perhaps because of his own stupidity, which he would later regret, perhaps because it reminded him of his best friend who was also the cause of his martyrdom, or perhaps for the sole reason of having an excuse not to re-enter the happy funeral home. The truth was that Kenma didn’t think about any of these, but nodded his head without questioning it too much, with the downside that he had no intention of paying for his drink.

The smell of hot coffee was certainly welcoming. The cold from the street disappeared as soon as they stepped into the cafeteria, causing the two men to remove their trench coats, but not enough heat to also make their suit jackets disappear. The waitress was an acquaintance of Matsukawa due to the inordinate number of times he had run away from his job to cause third degree burns to his throat with very hot coffee. The girl led them through the tables until they were seated in one corner, away from the few remaining customers, and Kenma guessed that this was the table Matsukawa used frequently.

"Well, tell me about your dramatic love story," Matsukawa said once they were seated, facing each other, after ordering two coffees with little milk. Kenma began to fix his ponytail while they waited for the drink and scolded his nose in the direction of his companion.

"I never agreed to do it," he commented in a soft tone of voice. Matsukawa feigned a pout as he pointedly disinterestedly at the place they had just arrived.

"But you agreed to buy me a coffee and the offer was implicit in it."

"I didn't agree to that either," he complained. He remembered emphasizing that last sentence quite well, but he guessed that Matsukawa had turned a deaf ear. The man booed him.

"You're not funny at all, huh. I guess the videos are just a facade. ”He sighed, his elbow nailed to the table and his chin resting on the palm of his hand, again with that way of his to squint in which he practically closed them.

Kenma frowned.

"It's not a facade," he argued with some annoyance. He didn't like his messing with his job like that. Who was he to judge, anyway? Because under his eyes Matsukawa wasn’t what one would say the ideal person to work in a funeral company. "It's just that I feel more comfortable at home than here."

"I call it boring."

The waitress looked up, from her position behind the bar, feeling the anguished gasp that came from deep in Kenma's throat. The boy was exasperated and his irritation increased with each second that Matsukawa kept the same goofy smile on his face. Kenma looked at him suspiciously, then snorted, understanding what he was doing.

"Are you trying to tease me like a flirting technique?"

Matsukawa's grimace became wider, vaguer, and a bit more mischievous than it was at first.

“I don’t know. Is it working?

“No.

Matsukawa clicked his tongue, cursing under his breath as if his alleged failure had bothered him, and leaned back in his chair, not caring, once again, for manners.

“It doesn't matter, I have other methods and you have a story to tell me.” His eyebrows rose with a certain impudence, as if the subject in question was a juicy gossip from some celebrity of the moment and not, in fact, the self-proclaimed dramatic story of the unrequited love of Kenma.

The arrival of the coffees at the table managed to relax the youtuber enough to support Matsukawa the necessary minutes in which they drank their coffee. It didn't take long for Kenma to wrap his hands around the steaming mug to warm them up, flooding his lungs with the soft smell of his freshly brewed drink like one of his favorite friends when it came time to stay up late playing video games.

"I've told you my dramatic story, it's fair that you share yours," Matsukawa whimpered a little more once he had opened the two envelopes of sugar that the waitress had given him. Kenma guessed that was the way he liked it. On one of the corner tables, with a lot of sugar and so hot it would end up with sores on your tongue.

"Your story isn’t dramatic," Kenma said, remembering his casual infatuation. He didn't know the exact details of the type of relationship that Matsukawa and his volleyball colleague had, but he was sure it couldn't be compared to the one he and his best friend shared. No way. "It's quite normal."

"My balls are normal," he argued, shaking his head. "I was brazenly flirting with him for three years and not once did he realize my intentions."

Kenma poured his own sachet of sugar over his coffee, stirring it with a teaspoon and eliminating the heart the waitress had drawn from the milk froth. He snorted with a spent edge.

"If your definition of flirting was the same as you are using now, I don't know why you are surprised."

"You'll end up asking me for my number, you'll see." He smiled, pointing at him with his own coffee spoon and giving one of his tired looks. Kenma pouted, convinced that Matsukawa's expectations were touching the limits of the stratosphere. "But don't change the subject."

Kenma shook his head. "I'd rather you tell me yours first."

Matsukawa's mustache was stained after hitting his first crop and listening carefully to the proposal of his companion, he licked his lips, eliminating any trace of the liquid. He accepted it.

“All right. His name is Iwaizumi, he was my classmate in first grade, and also a teammate at the volleyball club. From the second I saw him I said to myself, damn, he’s hot, but he had always been classified as straight so the only thing I could do was flirt with him openly and then laugh like it was a joke, ”he explained. Kenma nodded. As he had already predicted, their stories couldn’t be compared, it was as if they were part of two completely different universes that would explode if they ever crossed paths. “The worst of all is that he came from California, because he went to study there, declaring himself bisexual and with a boyfriend in his fucking pocket.

"That happens to you for being an idiot. You know it, don't you?” Kenma replied, without hesitation or formalities that restricted his thinking, releasing it as it was created in his head. Matsukawa snorted with a slight nod of the head, slipping a bit more in the wooden chair.

"That's what they told me."

"But it's still pretty normal."

Matsukawa stood up, denying in an exaggerated way repeating the refusal countless times without being able to accept Kenma's statement. He didn’t see it fair that the boy took the liberty of commenting on the relativity of his story when he hadn’t yet been able to tell his.

"You're not the one to judge me when you haven't opened your mouth," he demanded. He was teasing him, he really didn’t care if he told him or not the story he had hidden in his mind, but perhaps talking about it with someone wasn't an idea so far from his reality. "Come on, _Kokuze_ , tell me your story."

"It's Kodzuken."

Matsukawa didn't mind the correction, raising his hand in complete disinterest, not believing that the comment was relevant at the time.

"His name is Kuroo," he resigned himself. “He is my best friend.

The man raised his eyebrows curiously.

"In love with your best friend, I like it."

"We've known each other since we were little."

"Best childhood friend, perfect."

Kenma fell silent wondering if Matsukawa will continue to interrupt him at the end of each sentence. The latter, however, raised his hands indicating that he would remain, or try, to remain silent until his speech was over.

"I never realized I liked him. The feelings had always been there and I didn't bother to hide them, I had grown up with them. There was no confession and no flirting in vain.

Matsukawa's hand went up over his head, asking to speak like a thirteen-year-old in English class, and then he clicked his tongue: "Maybe that's why it didn't work."

The truth was, Kenma was completely sure that by the end of the night he would be glad he didn't have to see Matsukawa again. Still, he doubted that he would be able to survive another such encounter with such a being. However, for the moment it seemed comforting to discuss that subject with him. A complete stranger he would forget as soon as he walked out the cafeteria door.

"I think he didn't reject me for the sake of our friendship," Kenma confessed, looking down at his coffee. It was still burning. “He let… I let the feeling grow in my chest without any control with the illusion that everything would always be the same.

Matsukawa sipped his coffee again, this time a longer and louder mouthful, perhaps as his personalized way of tackling the matter.

"In high school he met a person and, well, he had his own feelings, so he fell in love," he continued. Matsukawa nodded, here came the drama he was asking for. "The wedding invitation came to me a month and a half ago."

"But what a great plot twist!" Matsukawa confessed without any intention of hiding the laugh that gurgled from his throat. Kenma rolled his eyes, feeling more stupid for having told histhan for any other embarrassing situation he had been in in his life. "Still, I don't see any difference between your story and mine."

Kenma snorted, taking the comment as an obvious answer to whether or not he had paid attention to his story, declaring the denial the clear winner.

"There are some that are obvious ...

"Nah," Matsukawa shrugged. “I see two teenagers as gay as sexy in love of people who wouldn't notice them even if they were pointed out by fucking Jesus Christ.

He opened his mouth willing to debate the comment, but the words were stuck in the pit of his stomach. He completely ignored the part where he called them sexy and focused on everything else. He saw himself sharing Matsukawa's thought and realized that there must be something wrong with him to understand the logic the idiot was using. As if the tongue had been eaten by the cat, Kenma averted his gaze anywhere but Matsukawa's eyes, and Matsukawa again scored a victory on his now long imaginary list.

"What position did you play in?" Kenma asked, watching as Matsukawa struggled to open the package of cookies that came with the coffee. They were made of cinnamon and, in his opinion, they were one of the ten wonders ever created by the hand of a human being. Kenma, however, would find a thousand and one reasons to debate that conjecture if he cared enough. At that point he would just say they are a bit bland.

“Uhm?”

"You said you played volleyball. Of what?· He continued with his question, showing that unlike Matsukawa, he had indeed paid attention to the information that had come to light that night.

"Middle blocker," he admitted. Kenma scolded his nose thinking that even in that they must be the same. It was surreal. "Did you do it too?"

Kenma nodded, sipping his coffee which had already adjusted to the room temperature he liked so much. "Yes, as a setter."

Matsukawa's eyes widened, which was to say, in genuine surprise for the second time that night. When he saw Kenma less than an hour ago standing in the middle of the funeral home staring at his own reflection, he couldn’t imagine that he would end up being such an interesting man. Nor that they would have so many things in common. It would make him feel a bit bad if he ended the night without the number of the youtuber recorded on his phone, but he was confident enough not to have to think about it.

"How much information are you giving me to fill out your Wikipedia? What high school do you come from? From what year to what year? I need the references to approve the content.

Kenma rolled his eyes again, trying to ignore him.

“You are good? I came to the Nationals during my three years, but your face isn’t familiar to me, ”he commented, for continuing with the volleyball theme and not changing it, not realizing that the Nationals and Matsukawa were a very explosive combination. He let out a resigned snort, and Kenma was grateful for finding a point where he could return the annoying jokes.

"We were good," he assured, but Kenma didn't believe it. "One of us is playing in Argentina, huh."

"Oikawa?" Kenma frowned at the news. Oikawa was the only Japanese player he knew who was playing for Argentina, so it wasn't that hard to guess either. He assumed, then, that Matsukawa's age would be around his own. The man hummed an affirmation. "The one who said Monsters Generation were only stones in his path?"

Matsukawa laughed, forgetting about his mental struggle with the word "Nationals", preferring to remember the moment when Oikawa's interview came out a couple of months ago. He and his friends still continued to use it as material to annoy him.

"Yes, that’s my boy."

"He stole our gold," Kenma recalled. The Olympics had been held less than five months ago and the loss of the Japanese National Team to Argentina was still a weak breach in the hearts of those who followed volleyball closely. Matsukawa raised his hands in peace.

"I went with Argentina," he admitted. "I didn't want Hinata, Kageyama, and much less Ushiwaka to have the pleasure of achieving victory."

The small laugh Kenma let out, finding the man amusing for the first time all night and despite his imaginable attempts, made Matsukawa completely lose the thread of the conversation. His lips curved up, his shoulders vibrated against the backrest, and one of his hands moved up to his mouth to hide the smile with little success.

"Traitor," Kenma muttered to him, unaware that volleyball was no longer a recurring theme inside Matsukawa's head.

"You laughed."

Kenma nodded his chin, taking another sip of his drink. "Very observant."

"You know, I've listened to your laugh for the short duration of a second and let me confess that it's the best sound I've ever heard in my life," Matsukawa blurted out, reckless, inconsiderate, and blunt as always. The comment came out of nowhere, but it echoed through the room as if it had been a ricochet. It was repeated over and over again in Kenma's mind as if he had not been able to understand it the first time and, before he knew it, Matsukawa was already looking at him with the same smile with which he would have collected his own gold medal. “Oh God. Have I made you blush? Sorry, what did you say about my attempts at flirting?

"Shut up," he complained as fast as he could. He lowered his gaze and tried to get the other to take his blissful mocking eyes away from him, without much success. It was late, he had realized. "It's just from the heat."

"It's winter, baby."

Kenma closed his eyes for a second to be able to calm down. When he opened them, unfortunately, Matsukawa was still there, smirking at him knowing that he had won whatever game they were playing. He grabbed the cookie that came with his coffee, which he hadn't touched, and lunged for him to content himself with eating and shut his beak. Matsukawa hummed happily.

"I guess this is when you ask me for my phone," he murmured through his mouth full.

"I'm not going to do it," Kenma snorted naively.

"Oh come on, I can be your escort for your Kuro's wedding," he suggested, raising and lowering his eyebrows in a promising way. "I can say whatever you want to make you look good."

“Whatever I want?

“Sure. Let him realize what he has lost.

What had been lost. It was nothing, in fact, so he had no need to brag. The vision of a romantic relationship with Kuroo had become so isolated in the past that he hardly came to it as a good "what would have happened?" at the sleeping hour.

"You don't know me at all," Kenma remarked. Matsukawa frowned, not understanding what he had said to make the atmosphere change so radically. He was learning to read to him! He just lacked a little more time.

"Sorry, I thought we made a bond tonight. Where did it stay?

"I'm not talking about that." Kenma licked his lips, savoring the bitter taste of coffee. There wasn't much left in his cup, and the last of the cafeteria customers were starting to leave, indicating that closing time was near. It was almost midnight. "I'm just saying that you don't know what has been lost, because you don't know how I am."

Kenma was pretty sure that if Matsukawa knew him he would see that Kuroo made the best decision. They were two equally blurred paths and at the end of one there was a much more promising light than the other. It was as obvious as simply checking how he'd ended up: Two weeks after marrying the love of his life. If Kuroo had decided to be together with Kenma, they would still continue to use the best friend's excuse as a silly facade. However, Matsukawa seemed to strongly disagree.

"That is easily fixed," he said. His cup of coffee was finished, the empty sugar and cookie packets inside it, his elbows dug into the wooden surface, his head bent forward. Kenma hadn't realized how close he was until he was less than an inch away. "Just let me know you."

He was 100% confident that it was the waitress's fault, who had turned up the heat, that it was so hot. There was no other logical explanation for why he could not control his body temperature, why he blushed in such a brutal way without any justification. He refused to accept that it was Matsukawa who caused him to even forget how to breathe.

"They're closing," he reported on Matsukawa's face. They were so close! The man was simply not moving. He kept looking into his eyes as if they were the keys to understanding the most convoluted issues in the universe. "We should go."

Matsukawa didn't pull away from Kenma until enough seconds had passed to make him believe, at least a little, that he was about to kiss him. He had licked his lips, lowered his gaze to their opponents, and then leaned back to rest the length of his back on his seat. Kenma couldn't breathe properly until his personal space was back.

"Will you pay for my coffee?" Matsukawa asked as he pulled on his coat. Kenma followed him.

"Do I look like I'm going to do it?"

“A little, yes. You can be my sugar daddy. What do you think about it?

Kenma glared at him defiantly, almost warning him not to say another word if he didn't want to be dumped in that cafeteria with two unpaid orders. They got up from the table almost at the same time, keeping pace with the cash register.

"I don't like it at all," he confessed.

However, when the waitress came over to collect the coffees they had had, the cheeky Matsukawa managed to get away with it and Kenma ended up paying for the drinks. He told himself that it was nonsense, that it hadn't been so expensive and that it didn't mean anything, so he shouldn't think about it. They leave the cafeteria in the false hope that the cold wind has disappeared from the streets.

It wasn't, and the two men could swear it was even doing more than when they entered. Kenma hugged himself over his coat, hiding his hands under his armpits, feeling like they would end up frozen. Matsukawa glanced at him and wondered if Kenma was one of those who preferred winter to summer. He would have to cut his ties to him if it was that way.

"Look on the bright side," Matsukawa began as they waited for the traffic light to turn green. Kenma watched him from below. If I looked at him closely, the reality was that there were few things in which the man resembled Kuroo. His hair was different, his eyes and his expressions. Maybe they shared height, but his best friend didn't have that slouchy, hands in pockets stance. Besides, Kuroo, as idiotic as he may be, would never be a quarter of how inconsiderate Matsukawa was. “Now we must meet again to return the money for the coffee.

But Matsukawa had something about the difference that got his attention.

"It wasn't even ¥ 500. It's nothing" he commented, because, in truth, it was nothing to him. They crossed the street and before they knew it they were again at the entrance to the funeral home. Kenma had almost forgotten why he was here.

"Now I can't live with the guilt of owing you such an amount, _Kenzukod_ ," he put a hand to his chest with no intention of pronouncing Kenma's nickname correctly at some point in his life. "We have to meet again as soon as possible or I won't be able to sleep."

Kenma hid a smile, glancing quickly at the funeral home door. His mother was going out with one of his aunts by her side just in time to leave the building. He looked back at Matsukawa and narrowed his eyes. It didn't matter, he told himself, he had lost too long ago.

"I suppose…" The darkness of the night made his redness less noticeable, but Kenma still didn't hide his nervousness. "This is when you ask for my number."

Matsukawa's hand went with amazing speed to his phone, willing to record the digits as fast as possible before he gave him to change his mind, more almost remembering something along the way, he decided to stop his movements. He raised an eyebrow in amusement, noticing the repetition of his words, and decided to click his tongue in denial.

"I think we agreed that you would ask me. You know, a matter of pride and stuff.

Kenma told himself that he didn't have to do that. No one would put a gun to his forehead and ask him to take out his phone and give Matsukawa's number. Nor was he going to die if, indeed, he didn't. But still he just snorted in disbelief, took his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to his companion to write the digits on it. He let him win, although it was repeated that it was because he had already lost.

“Good night baby. I hope to meet you again on these walks” he said goodbye. He had placed a heart next to his name, and although Kenma assured him that he would end up erasing the emoticon later, Matsukawa didn’t believe him. Her mother said goodbye to her aunt a few meters away and began to signal him to come closer.

"You know, I'm here every weekend," Kenma recalled with a small smile. Matsukawa nodded as if he had forgotten.

“It’s true. In the coffin. I remember.

Matsukawa walked away, taking the funeral home stairs two at a time, and Kenma slowly walked towards his mother. He lost the man's back as soon as he walked through the doors of the venue and ignored his mother's question about who the person he was talking to was. Kenma sighed when it was his turn to hug her aunt. It would have been more enjoyable to continue chatting with Matsukawa in the cafeteria. 

He… Well, he was funny.

**Author's Note:**

> Smells a bit like OOC, but never mind, I've already put in air freshener so ignore it. What do we have around here? To my beautiful Matsukawa, aka my spirit animal, with the handsome Kenma, aka everything I aspire to be in the future. The truth is that I don't know how this ship came out, but I thought about it for the exact duration of a second and I said, hell, I buy it. So here we are.
> 
> I've left the person Kuroo is marrying open in case I want to do a continuation of the wedding. It can be Tsukishima to honor the maximum OTP, or it can be any other rare pair, as there are few ... xD. And the MatsuIwa in the background is sdfsgsdgfsgf. I love these two together, they are super hot.
> 
> At first I was going to kill Kuroo, but I said to myself, bah, too intense. I prefer it to stay that way, with "normal" problems that each one takes with their own level of drama, because that is life. Matsukawa is a little bastard and I think I like him that way. There is the problem of the OOC that bothers me, but I think it is not that much either and it can be justified over the years. Oh, I don't know, I'm sorry: '(.
> 
> I hope you liked it. I was blown away by writing about these two (maybe for the next one they come out better). Thank you very much for reading. I send you a huge kiss. <3


End file.
